NYT Lets IHT Go Free For Now On iPad

The International Herald Tribune, the Paris-based paper bought out by The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) in 2002 and now run as “the international edition of the New York Times”, has made its iPad debut, as newspapers’ clamour to hit the tablets continues apace.

IHT’s app is a version of Press Engine, the mobile content software New York Times Company this August started offering to other publishers.

For now, the edition is free, supported by an app-wide sponsorship from Cartier, in the same way The Financial Times’ iPad edition debuted with a lucrative Hublot sponsorship. But the free will last only “until early 2011″, which coincides with NYT’s planned move to a metered access model.

The IHT app follows a month after NYT proper upgraded its mere Editor’s Choice app to a full-content version last month ahead of the model’s introduction.

IHT’s app comes with iHT’s own masthead despite its increasingintegration with NYT over the last couple of years.